iPads, iPhones, Androids are consumption devices. It is used to browse internet, play games, write simple emails, and open apps. These consumption tasks usually grabs users full attention one at a time. Engagement is usually short. These tasks require minimal use of multitasking.

On the other hand, Windows PC and iMacs are production devices. Users do homeworks, edit videos, write codes, write long emails out from these devices. It intensively uses keyboard. Engagement spans for several hours. Multitasking is definitely required.

The new iMac is thin that it resembles a giant iPad. But Apple did not choose to run iOS on it. It is a shame overkill to have such big screen for mere consumption. However, this is what Windows 8 exactly is doing. I have a 15.6″ touchscreen laptop, yet this metro-UI just keeps popping up in-your-face apps that waste screen real estate. I can not watch webminars and type-in notes in MSWord at the same time, because Windows 8 Media Player keeps going full screen in Metro mode.

I understand Metro-UI is for consumption use, but I simply just want to do my productive tasks done. The design of forcing users to keep going Metro makes me want to switch back to Windows 7.

2. No folder on Metro-UI

Right out of the box, the Metro-UI already look cluttered. Tight rectangle icons everywhere. I cannot make folder groups to hide certain icons. iOS allows this since iOS 4.

3. Not-so-obvious search bar on Windows Marketplace

To search for Apps in Marketplace, I was expecting a Search bar. But after scrolling right multiple times I could not find it. Turns out, it is hijacking the “Find” text field in Charm Bar. All of a sudden this field behaves differently. Instead of searching on my computer, it now searches the Marketplace.

4. The design decision to remove Start button

Microsoft wants to forcefully reeducate its customer base by removing the Start button. Why not simply relabeling it to something else ? Currently the open source project “Classic Shell” gets this concept right. The Start button should lead to two modes, “Program” and “App”. I know immediately what it means without thinking.

I am hoping that future Windows 8 service packs will address these issues. In short,

My IIS could not start. Turns out, it is because there is another Microsoft service occupying port 80. It is called “Web Deployment Agent Service” (“C:\Program Files\IIS\Microsoft Web Deploy\MsDepSvc.exe” -runService:MsDepSvc).

This URL link tells me how to get the occupying service, basically by running two command lines.

In short:
1. Override guarantees calling the child (derived) method. New does not.
2. Override always needs to be used with keyword virtual. New does not.
3. Overriding on class member requires child type to match the parent type. New does not.
Otherwise it will show the following error:'SomeChildClass.VarA': type must be 'Parent' to match overridden member 'SomeParentClass.VarA'

Bottomline, if you need certainty, use override. If you need flexibility, use new.

Excerpt from MSDN:
2. Use the addition assignment operator (+=) to attach your event handler to the event. In the following example, assume that an object named publisher has an event named RaiseCustomEvent. Note that the subscriber class needs a reference to the publisher class in order to subscribe to its events.

publisher.RaiseCustomEvent += HandleCustomEvent;

Note that the above syntax is new in C# 2.0. It is exactly equivalent to the C# 1.0 syntax in which the encapsulating delegate must be explicitly created using the new keyword:

Tweak #3 – Change the form icon.
The idea is to replace the embedded purple icon in VS2010’s devenv.exe to the VS2008 one. There are various ways, but here is what I did:
– Use IconChanger from Shellabs here. Trial version should suffice.
– Locate VS2010 devenv.exe file. By default it is in
“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe”.
– Replace its embedded icon with VS2008 one. By default it is in
“C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio 9.0\Common7\IDE\devenv.exe”.

IconChanger screenshot from Shellabs

This third step makes that gloomy VS2010 ribbon goes away from your top-left screen, replaced with the sunny VS2008 ribbon.